The Puritan (song)

"The Puritan" is a single by English band Blur. After being played by Damon Albarn at a poetry festival,^[1] speculation rose as to "The Puritan"'s release. It is the band's first single since 2010's "Fool's Day". It was announced the track would be premiered via a Twitter live feed.^[2] It was also accompanied by "Under the Westway" and was performed at Blur's 2012 summer shows.^{[citation needed]}

The performances of "Under the Westway" and "The Puritan" on 2 July were the first live performances of new material by the whole band since 30 January 1999, when all four members played a fan-club only concert at Finchley Arts Depot, London. This was at the start of the 13 tour, in which all songs from that album bar two were premiered.

YouTube Encyclopedic

1/3
Views:
40 151
6 637
4 315

Transcription

Reception

Matthew Horton of the NME wrote that the song was "initially jarring, with beats pulled straight out of a cracker, it soon unveils a "happy sad" – just one of many meta-lyrics – melody and the kind of ludicrous clowning bounce that Blur have always managed alongside the more world-weary stuff."^[3] Horton also stated that the song "pulls together the greatest titbits from the Blur catalogue, and finds room for traces of Gorillaz and all the other malarkey Damon Albarn's turned his magpie mind to. So it's bumped along by the kind of plastic electronic parp you could snap up on Freecycle, echoing Gorillaz' "Doncamatic" in its cheap-as-chips bop, and wigging out to a 'chorus' of frenzied fuzz-bass that'd slot nicely into the more annoying nooks of Think Tank."^[3]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Blur

7", download
No.	Title	Length
1.	"Under the Westway"	4:16
2.	"The Puritan"	3:25

CD
No.	Title	Length
1.	"Under the Westway"	4:16
2.	"Under the Westway" (acoustic)	4:04
3.	"Under the Westway" (instrumental)	4:17
4.	"The Puritan"	3:25
5.	"The Puritan" (instrumental)	3:26
Total length:		19:26

Personnel

Damon Albarn – lead vocals, synthesizers, acoustic guitar
Graham Coxon – electric guitar, backing vocals
Alex James – bass guitar
Dave Rowntree – drums

Charts

Chart (2012)	Peak position
France (SNEP)^[4]	165
Ireland (IRMA)^[5]	67

References

^ "Blur releasing two new songs in July". Musicrooms.net. Retrieved 3 July 2012.
^ PA (25 June 2012). "Blur to play live on Twitter - News - Music". The Independent. Archived from the original on 18 June 2022. Retrieved 3 July 2012.
^ ^a ^b Horton, Matthew (3 July 2012). "NME Track Reviews - Blur, 'The Puritan'". New Musical Express. Retrieved 2 February 2013.
^ "Blur – The Puritan" (in French). Les classement single. Retrieved 20 January 2020.
^ "Irish-charts.com – Discography Blur". Irish Singles Chart. Retrieved 20 January 2020.

v t e Blur
Damon Albarn Graham Coxon Alex James Dave Rowntree
Studio albums	Leisure Modern Life Is Rubbish Parklife The Great Escape Blur 13 Think Tank The Magic Whip The Ballad of Darren
Live albums	Live at the Budokan All the People: Blur Live at Hyde Park Parklive
Compilations	The Special Collectors Edition Bustin' + Dronin' The 10 Year Limited Edition Anniversary Box Set Blur: The Best Of Midlife: A Beginner's Guide to Blur Blur 21
Singles	"She's So High" "There's No Other Way" "Bang" "Popscene" "For Tomorrow" "Chemical World" "Sunday Sunday" "Girls & Boys" "To the End" "Parklife" "End of a Century" "Country House" "The Universal" "Stereotypes" "Charmless Man" "Beetlebum" "Song 2" "On Your Own" "M.O.R." "Tender" "Coffee & TV" "No Distance Left to Run" "Music Is My Radar" "Out of Time" "Crazy Beat" "Good Song" "Fool's Day" "Under the Westway"/"The Puritan" "Go Out" "Lonesome Street" "The Narcissist"
Other songs	"This Is a Low" "Caramel"
Video albums	Starshaped Showtime No Distance Left to Run
Related groups	Gorillaz The Good, the Bad & the Queen Rocket Juice & the Moon Fat Les Me Me Me WigWam The Ailerons
Related articles	Discography Songs Awards and nominations Rollercoaster Tour
Category

This page was last edited on 1 October 2023, at 20:15

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia